


Friends and Relations

by tetsubinatu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Lewis (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsubinatu/pseuds/tetsubinatu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione seeks out Hathaway.  She never could leave sleeping dogs alone!</p><p>This was conceived as the first of three parts, but I'm not sure if I'll get around to writing the rest and I think it can stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends and Relations

_~ If thou art blessed with a faery child, be kynde to hym lest the faeries wreke their wrath.~_

  


It was the name that caught Robbie's ear, of course. He was just coming in from an interview, his mind on his current case.

“Hathaway.” the young woman at the counter was saying, “James Hathaway? I'm told he works here.” 

Robbie turned around and went across to her. “Can I help you?” he asked, with a nod to the desk-sergeant, who left them to it. 

The lass seemed to be in her twenties – Robbie couldn't tell how far into her twenties, they all looked the same from his age – slightly built, with light brown hair drawn back into a careless bun on the back of her head. She looked like a student, or maybe a junior staff member at one of the colleges, and her confident voice was at odds with the slightly defensive hunch of her slim shoulders at his approach.

She looked at him warily, sizing him up. Too old to be Hathaway, she was clearly thinking. Boss? Colleague? Her voice was as confident as ever, however, as she re-stated her point. “I'm looking for a James Hathaway. I believe that he works as a member of the Oxfordshire Police?”

“He's my sergeant,” Robbie said bluntly. “Can I ask what this is regarding?”

“It's rather personal,” she said, biting her lip. “Can you tell him I'd like to speak to him please?”

He raised an eyebrow but nodded at her. “And your name?”

“Hermione Granger,” she said. “He doesn't know me.” She opened her mouth as if to add more, but then closed it again before nodding at him and robbing her hands nervously against her jeans.

“I'll let him know you're here,” Robbie told her.

 

_Faery child, faery child,  
Fair of face is the faery child  
Faery child, faery child  
Beware the grace of the faery child_

  


Hathaway merely shook his head blankly at the name and Robbie trailed him into the interview room as by right. The lad would tell him quick enough if he wanted Robbie gone.

“How can I help you, Ms Granger?” Hathaway asked.

The look in her eyes was oddly challenging. She glanced at Robbie with clear doubt and then proceeded warily, her eyes on James. “I believe that you must be the James Hathaway who was adopted by Terence and Janet Hathaway of Greenwood in 1982.”

Robbie stood utterly still, unregarded by the two younger folk.

Hathaway's chin went up and his eyes shuttered. “What is this about?” he asked sharply.

“I...” Ms Granger's chin went up to match. “I believe that I am marrying your brother.”

Hathaway's lack of reaction was scaring Robbie.

“Half-brother?” James enquired eventually, with clinical precision.

“No.” Her eyes fell. “Full brother. His name is Draco Malfoy and his family is very...” Her lips compressed uneasily before she continued. “... unprincipled.”

The silence was like glass waiting to shatter. Finally James sighed and turned his head to look at the mirrored window reflecting the three of them in shades of gold.

“Are my parents alive?”

“Your father is in prison... Not a.. a local prison - abroad,” she elaborated. “Your mother died recently. We found the records in her private papers. She kept track of you a little until you were about ten,” she added uncomfortably.

“And my … brother? Draco, you said.”

“He was born in 1980. He was just a baby when... He didn't know of your existence until we found the papers.”

“Why did you come here today, Ms Granger?” James asked. His gaze returned to lie flat and hard on her earnest face.

“I thought you should know. You might have questions.” She glanced away again. “I can come back if you'd like to think about it.” The thought seemed to give her confidence and she straightened again. “I have a mobile number.”

“Does _Draco_ ," James stressed the name, drawing it out, "know you're here?” 

The guilty expression on her face was as good as a No, Robbie thought. Clearly Hathaway thought the same.

“I'm not interested, Ms Granger,” he said tightly. “Now if you'll excuse me I am very busy.” The door shut behind his abrupt exit with a crack of controlled violence that was almost worse than a slam, and Ms Granger flinched at it. 

“He had the right to know,” she said under her breath. “Malfoys. Draco's the first in centuries who isn't a complete and utter prick, I swear!”

 

_Six year be barren  
Seven for a faery childe  
Nine for a human babe_

  


Robbie escorted her out politely and took her number, just in case. It wouldn't have taken much to get her talking – she opened her mouth several times and looked at him as if to speak, but that would have been a step too far for Robbie. James didn't want him poking around in his private affairs, of that he was sure.

He found Hathaway sagging against the brick wall that marked the end of police premises behind the car-park, cigarette in hand. He didn't look up as Lewis took up a spot beside him, upwind.

“Alright there, James?” he asked. Stupid question really; Hathaway didn't bother to answer it.

“Alive.” James said in a rough voice. He looked at Robbie with unseeing eyes. “They were alive, and married, and I had a brother.” He took a shallow, dragging breath, ignoring the cigarette which dangled from his fingers. “They just abandoned me on the moor then, just left me there and walked away."

Robbie's heart clenched in his chest.

“There was a hunt all over the moor after I was found," James continued. "I was about three. The authorities thought my mother must have been killed and I had just wandered away. I looked it all up in the papers when I was sixteen, down at the library." 

The blank tone gave way to bitterness. “My Mum and Dad knew better, though. They thought I'd been left for them by the fairies."

A faint, disbelieving smile slipped across James' lips as he glanced across at Robbie. "That's why my Mum was up there in the first place, up on the moor where she found me - it was a local superstition. Barren wives who went to the fairy mound would be granted a baby, the old tales said. A fairy baby; that's what she called me. They applied to adopt me. 'Such a romantic story'.”

James took another breath as he looked away again, the flat delivery of words continuing mercilessly.

“They had me exorcised twice a year, regular as clockwork: St John's Day and All Hallow's Eve. Old Father Pat would come over to our house and sprinkle the holy water on me and say the Litany of the Saints as my mother watched and my father held my feet, in case the demons came out.

“Only in the priesthood would I be safe, Mum said. She told me that as far back as I can remember. Only being a priest would keep the evil out of me. Fairy-born, devil's child.

“And my... my real mother, Mrs Malfoy, she just... let them do that to me. She knew where I was all the time! Why? Why did they do that, Robbie? What was wrong with me that they would do that?” James eyes came to rest with aching hollowness on Robbie's face, waiting.

“Nothing, James,” Robbie turned and then his arms were around James without him knowing how it had happened, holding his lad safe. “There's nothing wrong with you. The Malfoys, well God knows what was in their minds but he landed himself in prison, so he sounds like a wrong 'un to start with. And your mother cared. Perhaps she just couldn't stand up to your Dad, sounds like.”

After a moment, James dropped a beaten forehead onto his shoulder. “Perhaps,” he said. “Hell.”

“I'm going to have to ask that Granger woman, aren't I?” he said eventually, his voice muffled in Robbie's jacket.

“When you're ready, lad. No hurry. It can wait,” Robbie assured him. James smelled of smoke and curry, warm and bony against his chest. Robbie held on.

“Bastards,” James muttered viciously, his body coiling in rage.

“With knobs on,” Robbie agreed.

  


_It is said by the ignorant folk of the hills that midsummer eve brings the fae-born to the stones upon that hill which they call Faery Mound, and if that those women who are barren or who have lost their own babes wait there on that night, sometimes a child will be given to them. And it is also said of those women who take a fae-born child and are kind to him, that sometimes a full human babe will be born to them thereafter as a gift from the fae._


End file.
